How to stop torture

Mel Nowicki from the School of Social Sciences writes: 

As part of our School's new Centre for Environment and Society, myself and Tom Chambers are developing a research cluster on the theme of Space & Temporality. As a cluster we hope to draw in disciplinary positionalities from across the social sciences including Human Geography, Social/Cultural Anthropology, Sociology, International Relations and Politics as well as aligned fields such as architecture, history, art and theatre. The cluster will launch officially in the new year (look out for updates!), but we are happy to announce that we are running a short seminar series this semester by way of introduction. 

Our first seminar will take place next Thursday 22nd October at 2-3pm, with a talk by Dr Richard Carver entitled ''Stopping Torture: What Works?''. Richard researches and teaches human rights in the Centre for Development and Emergency Practice in the School of Architecture at Oxford Brookes University. He is also editor of the Journal of Human Rights Practice (Oxford). Richard’s research focuses on the institutional protection of human rights, in particular the rights of people deprived of liberty. Does Torture Prevention Work? (with Lisa Handley, Liverpool University Press, 2016) was a pioneering multi-country study of the effectiveness of the torture prevention methods advocated by international legal authorities and anti-torture campaigners. The research found that although many recommended preventive steps had a positive impact, some did not. It also found that the preventive measures most strongly embedded in international law were not necessarily those that worked best in reducing the risk of torture. 

Everyone is very welcome to attend - please find the Zoom link to the event here: https://brookes.zoom.us/j/85173583940?pwd=RVpnZDlRaEY1b1dCcDREWlZGMnRhUT09 

Meeting ID: 851 7358 3940 

Passcode: 1393453612

Podcast on CENDEP torture research

Mural on a wall in Bethlehem (Photo credit: Rory Carnegie)

Richard Carver writes:

Oxford Brookes has been boosting its public engagement through a series of podcasts by researchers from across the university explaining their research in an accessible way. I was one of the first to be interviewed back in February, but publication has been delayed for reasons that may be obvious. Now there is a rapidly growing list of podcasts. You can listen to mine by clicking here. Then follow the link on the left of that screen to find eight more (at the time of writing).

Police reform: lessons from CENDEP research

Photo credit: Wikipedia

Richard Carver writes:

George Floyd was tortured to death. This is not how his death is usually described, but it meets the clear definition of torture in international law: it was severe pain and suffering inflicted by a state agent for a deliberate purpose, in this instance racial animus or discrimination. CENDEP’s Lisa Handley and I directed a multi-country study to determine which were the most effective measures to deter torture, published as Does Torture Prevention Work? (Liverpool University Press 2016). Some of our findings have a direct relevance to the problem of police violence against African-Americans.

The most important measures to prevent torture are safeguards in the hours and days after arrest, including detention being recorded, notification of a family member or friend, and prompt access to a lawyer and medical examination. George Floyd was in police custody – defined as being unable to leave freely – and was informed that he was under arrest. The justification for the use of force was that Floyd was resisting arrest, although the videos taken by bystanders show that this was not so.

Think Human - a world without torture

Friday saw the launch of the Think Human festival, a two-week series of artistic and academic events run by the Faculty of Humanities and Social Science. CENDEP's Richard Carver, along with Sushila Dhall, a psychotherapist from Refugee Resource, will be speaking at a Think Human event on Monday 3 February: "Fighting Torture: creating a torture-free world." Click the link for (free) tickets, or just turn up at the door: Abercrombie AB115a, 13.30-14.30.

Human Rights Day 2018: how to stop torture

Today is Human Rights Day, which this year marks the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. One of the core human rights is the right not to be subjected to torture or other ill-treatment. To mark this day, we are publishing this cartoon strip by Shazeera Zawawi for the Association for the Prevention of Torture. 

Follow this link to read research by Budi Hernawan, Chris Sidoti, and Ricardo Sunga III on torture prevention in Indonesia and Philippines, originally published as part of a research project directed by CENDEP's Richard Carver and Lisa Handley (now available in Bahasa and Tagalog, as well as the original English).

Torture prevention: recent and future events

Richard Carver writes:

Quakers against torture

Quaker Concern for the Abolition of Torture is holding a day conference in London this Saturday, 3 November. I will be speaking first, then listening to an array of really interesting presentations, including Professor Ray Bull on investigative interviewing, Dr Elizabeth Stubbins Bates on torture and conflict, and Anna Edmundson on the work of the UK’s National Preventive Mechanism. A £10 fee (£5 students) includes lunch. Friends House, Euston Road, London, 10.30-16.30. All welcome, but booking recommended (follow the link above).

Meetings in Copenhagen
It is more than two years since Lisa Handley and I published the findings of our research project: DoesTorture Prevention Work? It is extremely gratifying how much continued interest there is in our book. Over the summer, I was invited to advise DIGNITY, the Danish Institute Against Torture, on their future planning (and also gave a public lecture in Copenhagen). DIGNITY is a primarily medical organization caring for the survivors of torture, but also has a strong emphasis on prevention and detention monitoring.

German police against torture

I have just returned from a really interesting conference at the police university of Brandenburg in Germany. The focus was fair treatment of persons in police custody. I talked about torture prevention and there were a series of sessions on investigative interviewing, mobilizing police potential to realize human rights, and developing police capacities, among other issues.

The university is in Oranienburg, next to the Nazi Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Some of the college buildings are former SS barracks. To their credit, the university authorities do not shy away from the lessons and implications of this history.

Atlas of Torture
The Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Human Rights at the University of Vienna have long been an important actor in torture prevention and we were honoured to have them as partners in our research. Over the summer they have updated and relaunched their Atlas of Torture, which is an excellent online resource for anyone interested in the issue. Please go and take a look.

Review article on Does Torture Prevention Work?
Back in Copenhagen, Torture is a specialist journal focusing on the medical aspects on the subject. They have published a review article of our book by Dr Hans Draminsky Petersen, a former member of the UN Sub-committee for Prevention of Torture and a highly respected medical practitioner treating torture survivors. Dr Petersen is critical of our methodology and findings in ways that we don’t agree with – and the journal includes a short response on our part. However, we greatly appreciated his positive words about the contribution of our research to the existing scholarship on torture: “this book will represent a key source of knowledge in the field of torture prevention and be a valued handbook on torture prevention for many years to come.”

Words have consequences

This is not about torture prevention, but in light of recent events I had to refer back to something posted on the blog a few months ago. I wrote in March about the Hungarian government’s attacks on refugees and civil society activists, all justified by the claim that the billionaire George Soros is bankrolling Muslims to emigrate to Hungary and undermine its “Christian culture.” Soros being Jewish, the claim has more than a touch of the global anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.

Readers could be forgiven for thinking that I was exaggerating this nutty theory (although I did provide sources). In Hungary it worked, however, with the ruling Fidesz party re-elected in April and now pressing ahead with its anti-refugee, anti-human rights agenda.

This theme has now been taken up on the other side of the Atlantic. President Donald Trump and leading members of the Republican party blame Soros for funding protests against them and, in the latest version, for funding the “caravan” of Central American refugees now walking slowly through Mexico. Aside from the obvious point that the refugees, mainly Hondurans, are seeking to escape what the president would no doubt call a “shithole country,” it is unclear why Soros would fund this initiative unless he was seeking to help the xenophobic candidates in next week’s mid-term elections. Still, logic never got in the way of the Big Lie.

But people take this nonsense seriously. First, someone sent pipe bombs to George Soros and a number of prominent Democrats, including two ex-Presidents. The man arrested is a vocal Trump supporter. Secondly, a man gunned down 11 worshippers at a Pittsburgh synagogue, telling police he wanted to kill all the Jews. His motivation was alleged Jewish attempts to flood the country with immigrants and destroy white America.

Words are not merely words. They are actions, and they have consequences.

Immigration detention: a national scandal

Dr Anna Lindley of the School of Oriental and African Studies is a visiting research academic at CENDEP. She was commissioned by the Bar Council of England and Wales to conduct a research project with legal professionals engaged with the system of immigration detention. She writes about her findings:

‘You are not much of a lawyer if you are not startled by the State’s power of indefinite detention, or the poor decision-making which results in many remaining in detention when they plainly should not be.’

The outgoing Chair of the Bar, Andrew Langdon QC, did not mince his words as he launched the Bar Council’s Briefing on Immigration Detention in November 2017. He was speaking in Temple Church, a site long associated with the Magna Carta and the defence of individual rights against the power of the state, at the heart of legal and constitutional London: a resonant setting for discussion of the politics and law surrounding detention.

The Bar Council’s briefing draws in part on a three-month research project it commissioned me to carry out with legal professionals, to explore their insights into the access to justice of immigration detainees. The research was primarily based on interviews with 21 barristers, solicitors, immigration judges and other specialists who witness on a daily basis the workings of the detention system. What stood out in their accounts was considerable frustration with the way the government governs and practises detention. Abundant examples were provided of unlawful detention, poor administrative practice and problematic features of the legal and policy processes. The picture that emerged was of a system riddled with injustice. The full report is available here.

Key facts about detention

The UK has one of the largest immigration detention systems in Europe. As of September 2017 around 3,455 people were being detained in largely privately run immigration removal centres and in prisons. Numbers have increased considerably in the last decade; a recent trend is the accelerating detention of EU nationals. Officially, people are held to facilitate initial processing or pending imminent removal. Around 30,000 people spend time in immigration detention each year, and there is a lot of churn as many are detained for short periods. However, in September 63% of those detained had been held for over a month, 364 people for over six months, 88 for more than a year, and some for multiple years. This is possible because, unlike most other countries in Europe, the UK has no statutory time limit.

Indefinite and administrative detention is associated with considerable human suffering: there is abundant evidence that it has a seriously detrimental effect on health and wellbeing, and numerous instances have been documented of serious abuse and deaths in detention. Despite several breaches of the torture and inhuman and degrading treatment prohibition in Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights in UK detention centres and a barrage of official inquiries and criticism, serious welfare concerns persist. The Home Office spent £118m of taxpayers’ money on detention ‘goods and services’ in 2016-17, and in the three financial years to 2015 paid out nearly £14m in compensation for unlawful detention claims. Just over half the people currently leaving detention are not in fact removed from the UK, but are eventually released by the courts or the Home Office into the community. Key concerns that emerged from interviews, which focused on the rule of law and access to justice issues, are outlined below.

No time limit, poor oversight, lack of representation

The legal and policy framework for immigration detention is flawed. There are broad statutory powers to detain people to prevent unauthorised entry and with a view to removal/deportation. This leaves much to be defined by administrative guidance and considerable room for discretion on the part of often quite junior Home Office decision-makers. This seems inappropriate given immigration detention involves deprivation of people’s physical liberty and on administrative, not criminal grounds. A more robust statutory framework is needed to govern immigration detention in the UK.

A prime example is the lack of a time limit. Too often days slip into months, slip into years of people’s lives. The ‘legitimate aims’ – initial processing of unauthorised entrants, or those pending imminent removal – already acknowledge that time matters. But what constitutes a reasonable period for detention and standards of due diligence is ill-defined within the current legal and policy framework. Lawyers pointed out that a time limit – there is a growing campaign for a 28-day maximum – puts the onus on public authorities to make more careful decisions and act diligently, as seen with changes in the criminal justice and mental health systems.

Lawyers’ accounts suggest poor standards of public administration have been normalised. They found that evidence of imminence of removal, risk of absconding and public harm is often poorly reasoned or evidenced; decision-makers often fail to act diligently and expeditiously; mistakes are made with serious consequences for the individuals involved and their families.

There is currently no prompt or automatic judicial oversight and ability to challenge detention is limited. The most prompt and accessible mechanism to obtain release is by making an application for bail. This is a summary process, experienced as a lottery by many lawyers and detainees. Interviewees reported that Home Office representation in the bail process regularly includes errors and misleading assertions (as one judge put it, ‘elliptical nonsense’) and generally standards of evidence in bail hearings are very limited.

Meanwhile, judicial review cases have generated a body of common law that checks some excesses of the system, and the process has allowed some particularly problematic aspects of detention policy to be challenged. But it remains vague on key issues like reasonable length of detention. Moreover, many detainees struggle to access legal aid or a lawyer to launch a viable claim. Most interviewees thought there are more instances of unlawful detention than reach the courts.

In this context, it is also important to note that many people experience difficulties accessing legal aid for immigration matters, prior to and during detention, making it even harder to challenge immigration and detention decisions.

The Windrush scandal has drawn public attention to the problems of accessing to legal aid for immigration matters, and how the Home Office deploys detention and removal. While the treatment of the Windrush generation has been met with public outrage, it is important to note that everyone in detention is caught in a system that has been aptly labelled Kafkaesque.[1]

This is an edited version of an article first published in COUNSEL magazine: https://www.counselmagazine.co.uk/articles/immigration-detention-the-bar-speaks-out

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[1] du Preez, Ben 'Indefinite Detention? We Are in the World of Kafka,' (London: Detention Action, 2015)

Everything you know about police interviewing is wrong

Richard Carver writes:

Everyone knows, I think, that one of the commonest justifications for torture is the so-called ticking bomb scenario. In this thought experiment, you (the security forces) have in custody a terrorist suspect who has knowledge of a bomb that is primed to explode in a very short time, threatening the lives of dozens, hundreds, or thousands of innocent people. Torture is advocated as the only possible chance of saving those lives. Most people who say that they would countenance torture in some circumstances probably have a situation like this in mind.

There are a number of arguments against torture in this scenario, but anti-torture campaigners have often contented themselves with saying that the whole premise is imaginary – that it doesn’t happen in real life. But Oslo police superintendent Asbjorn Rachlew knows that this is untrue. In the biggest case of his career, Rachlew was faced with a real life ticking bomb scenario. He used his training – a PhD in psychology and expertise in the new techniques of investigative interviewing – to defuse the case.

The case, of course, was that of Anders Behring Breivik, the far-right terrorist who murdered 77 people on a July day in 2011 by a bomb attack in Oslo and a shooting spree at a Labour party youth camp on the island of Utoya. What is less well known is that when Breivik was arrested he told police that two other “units” were poised to attack. He created, in effect, a ticking bomb. The Norwegian authorities did not know at this stage that the supposed accomplices were a figment of Breivik’s imagination, but did not even take a step down the path towards torture. Rather, they assigned Superintendent Rachlew, a man trying to persuade the police of the superiority of a new form of interviewing.

Asbjorn and I were both invited speakers at an important event last week organized by the Danish government in its capacity as president of the Council of Europe, along with the Danish Institute Against Torture (DIGNITY) and the Convention Against Torture Initiative. The purpose was to encourage European governments to develop safeguards against torture in the early hours after arrest. The finding of my research with Lisa Handley was that these safeguards constituted the most important protection against torture and ill-treatment. Julia Kozma from the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) and I discussed the importance and impact of detention safeguards. Asbjorn and Laurence Alison from the University of Liverpool introduced the concept of investigative interviewing.

Juan Mendez and Asbjorn Rachlew

At the same time as Lisa and I launched our book at the UN in 2016, Juan Mendez was presenting his final report as Special Rapporteur on Torture. He recommended the adoption of an international protocol on investigative interviewing. The rationale for this corresponded to an important finding in our research: when police and prosecutors reduce the reliance on confession evidence, then the incidence of torture declines.

As Asbjorn Rachlew puts it, investigative interviewing “operationalizes the presumption of innocence.” We have all watched TV dramas or read police procedural novels where the interrogator’s killer move is to confront the suspect with a piece of evidence that must be explained away. Yet, in reality, this is extremely dangerous. It aims at testing only one hypothesis –  the one that the investigators have already adopted – rather than looking at all possible explanations, including those in which the suspect is innocent. The effect of taking a much more open-ended approach, not initially confronting the suspect with specific evidence,  protects the suspect’s rights, but is also much more likely to lead to an accurate conclusion to the investigation and avert the risk of a miscarriage of justice. Even leaving aside coerced confessions, 25% of confessions are false. For juveniles the proportion is much higher. And a conviction based on a false confession is not only a violation of the rights of the suspect; it also means that the real culprit has walked free and remains a threat to the community. Indeed, as we discussed in our book, investigative interviewing was a technique developed by British police in response to a number of high profile miscarriages of justice based upon false confessions (some of them involving torture).

Asbjorn Rachlew now spends much of his time training police internationally in investigative interviewing, with positive results in superficially unlikely places such as Indonesia and Vietnam – for the simple reason that the techniques work. The campaign to adopt an international standard on investigative interviewing continues. The Convention Against Torture Initiative, established by several states to promote ratification of the UN Convention Against Torture and to help states implement their obligations, has this excellent background document on investigative interviewing.

Identity: torturer

Richard Carver writes:

Look at this picture. Does it depict torture? Of course, it does. It is a representation of water torture in early modern Europe. This is the same in all essentials as so-called waterboarding,* one of the “enhanced interrogation techniques” used by the Central Intelligence Agency under the George W Bush administration and extensively documented by a subsequent Senate investigation. Waterboarding is torture.

This is not the blog post I originally intended to write today. (That one is on a much happier theme and I will post it tomorrow.) It is not directly about our work at CENDEP, but since Lisa Handley and I spent four years researching how to prevent torture, we could hardly not react to a major piece of news this week. One of our findings was that investigation and prosecution of torturers was a highly effective way of preventing torture. (We can reasonably infer the converse – that failure to investigate and prosecute will make the recurrence of torture more likely.)

Now consider this:

One declassified cable, among scores obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union in a lawsuit against the architects of the “enhanced interrogation” techniques, says that chief of base and another senior counterterrorism official on scene had the sole authority power to halt the questioning.

She never did so, records show, watching as Zubaydah vomited, passed out and urinated on himself while shackled. During one waterboarding session, Zubaydah lost consciousness and bubbles began gurgling from his mouth. Medical personnel on the scene had to revive him.

(You can read the whole story here.)

The chief of base mentioned in this account was Gina Haspel, nominated this week by President Donald Trump to be the next director of the CIA. Some of her defenders purport to be shocked that “liberals” and feminists are not more excited that she is the first woman nominated to the post. Even without attending CENDEP’s workshop on intersectionality this week, we know that a woman who intersects with being a torturer is still a torturer.

Gina Haspel is by all accounts a criminal who has violated one of the strongest prohibitions of international law. She is a torturer (who compounded her crime by destroying evidence). She should be behind bars, not preparing for Senate confirmation hearings.

* So-called because waterboarding makes it sound like a fun holiday activity. The use of a board is not an essential part of the torture; near-drowning is.

Work in progress seminar - measuring the impact of human rights work

Twenty or 30 years ago, the human rights world paid no attention to measuring the impact of its work - indeed, it was almost a point of honour not to do so, and instead to bear witness to violations and to "name and shame" perpetrators. Partly under the influence of financial donors, this has changed. Human rights organizations have fallen under the influence of evaluation culture. However, dominated by a normative and legal agenda, they are still not very good at it. Meanwhile, the few scholars to focus on this issue have mostly suffered from the opposite defect. They have the sophisticated analytic skills that human rights activists lack, but usually have a weak understanding of the normative framework. Is there a way of bridging this gap?

Richard Carver's presentation will be based on his own experience, grappling with how to measure the impact of human rights work, usually without much success. He will try to persuade participants that Does Torture Prevention Work?, his 2016 work with Lisa Handley, has bridged the gap, applying sophisticated research methods to real world human rights issues. But can it be replicated? And how can we know what is the impact of the book itself?

The seminar is on Thursday 15 February, 16.30-18.00, in the Student Hub, White Space, on the 3rd floor of the Abercrombie building. All welcome. For the whole seminar series, check the full programme.

Scholars and activists unite against torture

Richard Carver writes:

We spend a lot of our time at CENDEP thinking about the relationship between academic scholarship and practice. We are academic researchers and the centre is dedicated to development and emergency practice. What that means for us as scholars is inevitably a matter for endless debate – and one for which there can be no definitive answer.  Very early in the history of this blog, Cathrine Brun offered an interesting approach to the collaboration of architects and social scientists, while Charles Parrack has made several contributions on the collaboration between practitioners and scholars in the shelter sector.

The Torture Prohibition Network meets in London

The approach Lisa Handley and I took in our book on torture prevention was distinct from any of these. Our research was indeed commissioned by a practitioner organization (the Association for the Prevention of Torture). Many such collaborations are aimed at helping practitioners to do the things that they do more effectively. Our research question, by contrast, was to ask whether practitioners are doing the right things – not how they could do potentially wrong things better. In fact, we found that one of the four main strands of torture prevention work was ineffective. We were delighted recently with a very positive review of our book by Olivier Chow in the International Review of the Red Cross, not least because it understood precisely what our intention was:

This book is important because it is the first evidence-based feedback on the many efforts of national and international actors in the field of torture prevention. The findings of the research can provide concrete and actionable material for those who work in the field of torture prevention, enabling them to focus on and invest in what works rather than only going along with a formatted response – which sadly is often the norm.

However, this is not the only model of the relationship of scholarship and practice, even within the narrow field of torture prevention. In November, I was invited to take part in and address the founding meeting of the UK Network on the Prohibition of Torture, held at London University. This meeting gathered participants from three distinct sectors: academia, civil society activists, and statutory bodies with responsibility for protection against torture. The focus is on combatting torture and other ill-treatment both within the United Kingdom and internationally. There were two distinct strands present within the meeting: prevention of torture, which was the subject of my remarks, and the rights of victims of torture, introduced by Carla Ferstman, the director of REDRESS.

The meeting was held under Chatham House rules, which means that I cannot report and attribute remarks made in the meeting. I strongly recommend reading this excellent summary of the proceedings. What was interesting to me was the many potential modes of collaboration between academics and activists. To give one example: in my presentation I referred to one of the conclusions from our book, namely the very poor quality of available data on torture and ill-treatment. We recommended that reporting be standardized in order that data be comparable across both time and space. Of course, what we primarily had in mind was less developed countries where all recording of official data is underreported. It was surprising to be told by representatives of UK statutory bodies that they faced precisely these problems – and appealed to scholars for help in compiling better statistics. Here is a simple area for collaboration – at least in principle. We share a common interest in accurate, consistently recorded data, whether to aid our research or to enable us to fulfil our protective role. This was one of a number of potential common interests that the meeting identified.

Anyone interested in participating in the network can either contact the Global Governance Institute at UCL, following the embedded links above, comment on this article, or email me: rcarver@brookes.ac.uk. There is some more information on our research here.

Important decision on Iraq ill-treatment

Richard Carver writes:

I sat down this week to write a blog post about the new UK Torture Prohibition Network – an important topic, but one that will now have to wait until the New Year. (I am, however, illustrating this post with a picture from the public forum that followed the launch of the network in London last month.) The reason for changing topic was an extremely important judgment this week in the High Court in London. Mr Justice Leggatt found in favour of four claimants who alleged that they had been ill-treated by British troops during the occupation of Iraq.

Torture in the UK - public event to launch the Torture Prohibition Network

(l-r) Sir Malcolm Evans (Bristol University), Carla Ferstman (REDRESS),

John Wadham (National Preventive Mechanism), and Tom Pegram 

(University College London)

Last year, Lisa Handley and I published our book on torture prevention, which included a case study of the United Kingdom. The UK actually offers a generally positive lesson. Thirty years or so ago, torture, if not rife in the British criminal justice system, was certainly more than occasional, while less severe forms of ill-treatment were widespread. This picture has been changed as a result of radical reform, most importantly major improvements in criminal procedure and changes in interviewing techniques. There are now duty solicitors in police stations and all interviews are electronically recorded. Much less reliance is placed on confession evidence. This is all backed up by an effective system for monitoring detention and imprisonment and, of course, peace and fundamental police reform in Northern Ireland.

The big exception to this generally positive picture has been the behaviour of British forces operating outside our borders, notably in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although offshore places of military detention should be subject to a similar monitoring regime, in practice they are not. The notorious “five techniques” of sensory deprivation, used by the British army in Northern Ireland in the 1970s and ostensibly prohibited after that, resurfaced in Iraq. This first came to attention in the case of Baha Moussa, the Basra hotel receptionist beaten to death by British troops.

The four cases decided by the High Court this week are the first “lead cases” out of several hundred similar claims of ill-treatment by Iraqi civilians who were detained by British forces. Mr Justice Leggatt ordered the Ministry of Defence to pay compensation to the four men for treatment that included forced nudity, sexual humiliation, cigarette burns, sleep deprivation, and hooding. In one case, troops had run over the backs of detainees. The treatment “involved the gratuitous infliction of pain and amusement for the amusement of those who humiliated them.”

The claims were grounded on the twin legal bases of English common law and the Human Rights Act (which is the enactment of the European Convention on Human Rights into British law). Mr Justice Leggatt found that the men’s Convention rights had been violated, but also made repeated references to the military’s breaches of their obligations under the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law (or the law of armed conflict). The British government has suggested that in future conflicts it will derogate from the European Convention, so that it is not obliged to respect the human rights of civilians (or indeed of British personnel). This is legally illiterate – it is not possible in any circumstances to derogate from Article 3 of the Convention, which protects against torture and other ill-treatment. However, this case is a reminder that it is also somewhat beside the point, since the Geneva Conventions embody basic standards of humane behaviour – including torture prohibition – precisely in situations of armed conflict.

While these cases – and possibly more to come – offer the prospect of some limited financial redress for the victims, they do not bring accountability of those responsible. However, there is some positive news on that front too. The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court recently announced progress in the preliminary investigation of a large number of cases of alleged ill-treatment by British personnel in Iraq, concluding that there is a “reasonable basis” to believe that they committed “war crimes” including murder, torture, outrages upon personal dignity, and rape or other forms of sexual violence.